


Scars

by quandong_crumble



Series: Scars Fade [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Healing, Iron Man 3 Compliant, Iron Man 3 Spoilers, Less than 1000 words, Nightmares, PTSD, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 21:15:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quandong_crumble/pseuds/quandong_crumble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief character study from Tony's and then Pepper's points of view, set after Iron Man 3.</p>
<p>While Tony heals, Pepper falls apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scars

**Author's Note:**

> So this started as a cute little look at Tony's reaction to what the Extremis did to Pepper after she was cured... and took a weird turn when I started writing a followup from Pepper's point of view and realised how badly everything in Iron Man 3 would have scared her.
> 
> So I gave Pepper nightmares and PTSD. I think I deserve a special place in hell for that.

He misses her scars.

The small, L shaped white line near her eyebrow where the doctor removed a suspicious freckle.

The two tiny indents on her earlobe where she used to have an extra set of earrings, before he met her.

He misses the fan of silver stripes that decorated her breasts and hips, stretch marks that she hated but he loved. He used to run his fingers over them when they lay together, feeling the faint ripple of the skin and watching the goose bumps appear in the wake of his hand.

He misses the faintly pink, still raised scar on her stomach, souvenir of an emergency appendectomy four years ago. He worried about her then, insisted that she take a full two weeks off for recovery and pretended that he was enjoying two weeks without her hounding him to get to meetings on time. He told his secretary to send something floral and tasteful and when Pepper returned to work looking pale but happy and wearing smaller heels for the next month he pretended not to have noticed her absence.

He misses the little hollow the size of a quarter on her knee. It's so shallow it's barely noticeable, and the result of a fall off a bicycle when she was twelve. He liked to run his thumb over it.

He misses all the little imperfections, all the little reminders that Pepper is human, has had a life, has a history. He liked those marks, those lumps and bumps that were physical reminders of just how perfect and wonderful she is. But he can live without them, because every night she is there in his arms, warmth and light and her brilliant smile.

They may not make new scars together, he hopes they don't, but now he searches for the other reminders. The freckle on her shoulder shaped like a turtle. The few fine silver hairs on her head that she hasn't noticed yet, that he hopes she doesn't see and dye over. The fine lines in the corners of her eyes and around her mouth. All the reminders that she's real and perfectly imperfect that the Extremis didn't erase. They're not faults, they're the little bits of life that make her his.


	2. Light

She hates to admit, but she misses his light. The bedroom seems darker now, the shadows blurring until all that's left is dark smears of gray on purest black, blanketing the entire room. Without the blue glow sharpening those shadows, lightening that grey, the room looks unfamiliar. Dishonest, somehow. 

Worse, though, she misses the shape of the arc reactor. The unforgiving press of metal and glass against her chest when they cuddled. It anchored her, somehow. It was something uniquely his, something he never hid from her, never flinched from her touching. 

He flinches now.

The new scars are still an angry purple, red around the final skin graft. His chest is a patchwork quilt of scars, puffy, raised and inflamed; old silver now faded and insignificant next to the mass and knot of new red and too-pink skin grafts that she wants to touch to check for the heat of infection. 

She misses the blue light because even though he no longer stands spine rigid and chest thrown out to make enough room to breathe, even though he already breathes easier, he flinches at the sight of his own skin. The knot of scars on his chest, the stripes on his back and thighs where they took the healthy skin for the grafts, these bother him more than a nuclear power source nestled against his heart ever did. 

His nightmares might be over, the shrapnel gone and the suits destroyed, but hers are worse than ever. She dreams at night of falling, knowing that no matter the damage when she hits the ground she can get up and walk away. She can be rebuilt by the hideous virus that's still there in her dreams; even long after the frightening heat has been cured in reality. But in her dreams he dives after her, tries to catch her, and there's no metal suit to follow him, no flying armour with JARVIS at the helm that can save him. And while she can walk away, he's too human now, too breakable. He won't be rebuilt. He can't protect them now.

When she wakes at night gasping for air in the too-dark room and he's there, stroking her hair and murmuring reassurance and promise, all she can ask herself is: _What have I done?_


End file.
